


The Youkai Down the Road

by Puimoo



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:56:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puimoo/pseuds/Puimoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a youkai that lives down the road, in a mansion that stretches up into the sky.  Pre-series, Matoba and Natsume centric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Youkai Down the Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamer1789](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamer1789/gifts).



> This is a treat that is not a treat, in the sense that I somehow read your prompt as wanting Natsume and Matoba fic set back when Natsume was a child, instead of Natsume and Madara. I certainly thought it was an interesting and unexpected combination at the time, and wondered what had inspired it! It was only when I went to upload the fic that I realised how wrong I had been. Hopefully, it works still as a non-treat, as Madara was part of one of you alternative requests (I am totally stretching, here).

There is a youkai that lives down the road, in a mansion that stretches up into the sky. The flowers in the garden are spun in colours that don’t even exist in Takashi’s crayon box, and so while he waits at the bus stop nestled outside the iron gates, he names them each instead. There are sea-monster blues and peach-apple pinks. Soft dusts of snow sprinkles and the warmth of wheat just as it goes to husk. 

The youkai who lives there himself is spun in silk and lies, even though he wears a senior school uniform and a smile that flickers momentarily at the side of his mouth before sliding away. Takashi may be only five, and he knows that there are humans who are sort-of demons and demons that prance around with painted souls. And yet, there is something about this youkai - his sliding smile and fractured gaze - that solidifies in the pit of Takashi’s stomach until he focuses instead on the colours and flowers and the way in which the mansion drags down even the sky.

Takashi never speaks to him, turning his back slightly and dipping his chin into his chest when the youkai comes to stand beside him each morning at the bus stop. The weather never dares interfere with the youkai’s tall, slim elegance, although Takashi privately thinks (his eyes ducked down, just in case the youkai tries to see through them into his soul) that the disguise is as paper-thin as some of the childish masks the youkai sometimes wear. All ink black and gold-flecked trim, the uniform doesn’t belong to any of the local schools, and Takashi has been to them all. The youkai is a student, Takashi thinks, with a quick flick of a gaze that never quite reaches the youkai and barely dares skims the space that surround it. There is an aura of learning that is reflected in that one, cold eye, and a thoughtfulness that extends to objects and scenes while somehow forsaking anything human.

The other students haven’t noticed that anything is wrong, possibly because there is a scapegoat at hand to explain away those moments when the air just shifts, or where a deep cold penetrates much further than it should. They … they say that Takashi is comprised of nothing but mistakes, for how is it that one month he lives down one road, and the next down another? No, the other boys say. Takashi haunts the bus stop, forever stained by the stench of those who have passed through and his inability to keep clean. No matter how much Takashi washes (and he washes and washes, until he is raw and his tears mix with the steam), they still wave their hands in front of their noses and wonder aloud if Takashi is a corpse after all. He certainly doesn't seem to be very good at living.

It is then that the boys try and return him to the earth, just to make sure. Takashi shudders deep into his thin jacket as he remembers how they pushed him down, the clumps of dirt smeared into his hair and deep into his clothes, shoved down his throat and clogging up his ears until it had felt as though Takashi was being consumed by his own raging heartbeat. Takashi doesn’t like being five, if these are the kinds of games he is meant to play. That is what his teacher said when they returned to class, her look of disdain reserved for Takashi and his dirt, and not for those who had created it.

If asked, Takashi says that nothing happened at all when he returned home like that, all ruin and mud. Nothing at all.

Nothing. Nothing at all. 

He misses the bus the morning the daffodils greet winter in a soft butter-yellow, woken late by an aunt who has eyes heavy from drink and a hand that seems permanently dipped in violence. He waves desperately at the bus as it races off in a putter-puff of black smoke, but all that lingers is the laughter from the bus windows. He drops his hands down onto his knees and tries to catch back his breaths after that last, useless dash. There is a hint of rain in the air and it clings to his hair, and he sucks idly on a damp strand as he tries to figure out what to do next. 

The next bus isn’t for almost two hours. And he … he can’t go home.

His school is at least 45 minutes away by foot, and Takashi shudders at the thought of his teacher’s annoyed glare when he arrives late. Still, he squares his shoulders and bites down on his bottom lip in determination. He ignores the litter of demons that skitter around the bus stop sign, and definitely, definitely ignores the youkai-in-school-uniform who appears to be taking a quiet pleasure in Takashi’s situation as Takashi passes him by. 

“Aren’t you a strange little one,” the voice is cold and laced with a dark humour, and Takashi stills mid step. “I would have thought that those children would have finished you off by now. The words of young humans can be more potent than the strongest of charms.”

This is the first time the youkai has spoke to him, and Takashi can feel the magic of his words crawling down his spine. He is left helpless, unable to move as the youkai moves from behind him, one hand sliding over the top of Takashi’s head.

“You are a rather pathetic attempt at a human child, but I must commend you on the effort you put in.” The words strike deeper than any magic, and Takashi turns wide, panicked eyes up at the youkai. How, how can he possibly know? Is it so clear that he doesn’t fit in with the other young boys that even a youkai can tell? The thought stings, and Takashi drops his gaze to the pavement in shame. Thin fingers slide through his hair. “Do you really think that simply sharing the same space - the same air - as those boys will really allow you to pick up the scraps of their souls?" 

Takashi's world feels like it is fading away around the edges, and his eyes cloud over. The pain would be preferable to this finality. He has tried - tried so hard! - to be just like the others, hoping that if he only -

Ha. HA.

He chokes back a quiet sob, his small hands clenching into fists.

And then, he runs.

It is the last thing the youkai is expecting - Takashi doubts anyone has ever broken the spell those words cast the moment they are uttered on that silken, commanding voice - and a surprised yelp follows him as he ducks his head down and bursts through a small hedge. Takashi ignores the startled looks he gets when he exits through the other side, twigs and leaves stuck in his hair. The scrapes down his arms sting, but he welcomes the pain because it drives away his thoughts. 

He vaults over a low fence, finally finding space as the houses give way to a small forest. He briefly loses his footing on the tricky, traitorous roots, but he thinks if he can just hide himself deep in the hollow of a tree or up in some thick branches-

Takashi lets out a surprised grunt as he collides with something solid, falling to the forest floor. He shakes away the momentary cobwebs, but the sight that greets him when he looks up makes him wish he could bring them back. 

“It's not often that my dinner comes to me,” the youkai says with a wide smile. It is a shapeless mist of black, so tall and wide that the trees seem to bend away from it, the leaves trembling in fear. Takashi can only look upon the exposed, sharp teeth in horror, crawling backwards on his hands as he tries to put any space between them. Takashi has never seen this youkai before (except perhaps in his most disturbing nightmares), but it feels of the bus stop, all humiliation and mockery. “I was hoping to snack on the souls of those other boys you are often with, however yours will certainly be an efficient enough appetiser.”

There is no where left to run, nowhere to escape to-

There is a whoosh, deep and vibrating, and then there is an explosion of pain that tears through Takashi's shoulder, shattering skin and bone. Takashi collapses forward in shock, his eyes unseeing as the pain consumes everything; every sense, every thought, every _breath_ as though it is something insignificant - 

The youkai in front of him implodes, leaving behind a sickly black goo that drips from the trees and slips like oil across the leaves on the forest floor. Embedded in a tree trunk just opposite of where Takashi is collapsed is an arrow.

Takashi realises then that its twin is currently buried in his shoulder, the tip-

A soft, helpless cry presses up his throat, and he folds inwards. He doesn't care that he is no longer alone in the forest, nor that the intruder holds a bow and is regarding him with a calculated gaze. He doesn't care, he doesn't care-

It hurts. It never ever stops hurting, not for one moment, ever. 

“Interesting,” the youkai murmurs, except now he is not a youkai at all but simply a boy, and one who destroys demons as though they should never exist in the first place. There are splodges of the dead youkai in Takashi's hair, on his face, seeping in through his clothes and in to his skin. He can't breathe. “And here I had thought you were one of them.“ The older boy's brow furrows in distaste, and he tips his head to the side in thought. “That ... is unlike me.” Fingers dip painfully into Takashi's wound, as if to make sure he bleeds blood and not black ink.

It takes the last of his energy to glance up through his hair at this new kind of monster, his dispassion the only thing that seems to pierce through the fog that is creeping through Takashi. 

“P-please ...”

“The clean up crew will deal to you,” the boy and his strange uniform says with a slithered smile. “Try better to be an actual human boy, next time.”

Just like that, the other boy is gone.

Takashi falls, and not even the leaves bother to catch him.


End file.
